By Katie Northcott, News Director
At its Jan. 20 meeting, the Manchester Finance Committee discussed its decision to take funding that the Manchester Chamber of Commerce expected to receive and reallocate it to the city’s Tourism Committee.
Find reporting on that decision here.
Note that the initial article says Vice Mayor Mark Messick abstained from voting. Messick said he was making a joke when he initially voted to abstain. After some discussion, he later changed his vote to no.
At the Jan. 20 meeting Alderman Thomas Crosslin said that there was “a lot of misconception in the community” about the committee’s decision.
“It bothers me a little bit the way that it’s understood,” Crosslin said.
Crosslin explained that the city gave the Chamber a $10,000 donation for Chamber operations for the year. The city also normally outsources its $27,000 tourism budget to the Chamber.
Crosslin said the committee simply decided to stop outsourcing its tourism budget and internally spend $13,000 of the funds normally outsourced to the Chamber.
“After looking at the [Chamber’s Memorandum of Understanding], I don’t think there was $27,000 of work there.” Crosslin said. “We basically made the decision that we could in-source that activity and be more efficient with the public’s money.”
Crosslin said that if the Chamber needed a larger donation, the Finance Committee could entertain giving the Chamber more money.
Crosslin’s comments come after Alderman Ryan French’s motion at the December Board of Mayor and Alderman meeting asking the committee to up Chamber funding from $10,000 to $25,000 passed 5-1. Vice Mayor Mark Messick was the lone dissenting vote, saying he would be “all for it” if Chamber representatives had come to the meeting to ask for money themselves.
Find that story here.
Mayor Joey Hobbs said that the reason that the committee would not consider giving the Chamber a larger donation at its Jan. 20 meeting was because the Chamber had not made a request itself.
“In [Alderman French’s motion], it says for the Chamber to bring to this committee what the additional ask would be,” Hobbs said. “That’s why it hasn’t appeared on the agenda because as to date, they have not sent over a request for you guys to entertain.”
The city’s recorded minutes from the Dec. 2, 2025, Board of Mayor Aldermen meeting read, “Alderman French made a motion to send back to the Finance Committee to make an allotment to the Chamber of Commerce in the amount of 25,000 and the Chamber would need to make a request.”
However, on the recording of the meeting, French says nothing in his motion about a presentation from the Chamber. When articulating the motion at the BOMA meeting, Hobbs said he assumed the Chamber would make a presentation. However, that was never formally added to the original motion by French.
In the video recording of the meeting, French said that his motion was to raise the donation for the year to the Chamber from $10,000 to $25,000.
“I want to send a request to the Finance Committee for them to consider raising the allotment from the Chamber of Commerce that we give them for chambering–let me be very clear, not for tourism–but we raise that allotment from $10,000 to $25,000,” French said.
At Tuesday’s finance meeting, Hobbs said it was unclear what French meant in his motion.
“Is that for the year? Was it an additional $25,000? Was it on top of the ten?” Hobbs said. “That’s the way it’s worded in our minutes from the December meeting. So that’s why [the Finance Director] didn’t put it on [the agenda].”
Hobbs can be heard twice instructing Finance Director Anthony Burrows to put the Chamber funding item on the January Finance Committee agenda at the December BOMA meeting. The December BOMA meeting minutes were not officially approved by BOMA and made available to the public on the city’s website until after the BOMA meeting on Monday, Jan. 12.
Peterson Media Group has reached out to the Chamber and French for comment.
The post Crosslin Claims Finance Committee Didn’t Slash Chamber Funding, Would Consider Donating to Chamber appeared first on Thunder Radio.
